Advances in medical technology have improved recovery times and reduced complication rates. One significant advance is the increasing prevalence of endoscopic diagnosis and laparoscopic surgery, which avoids the need for cutting large holes in a patient by using small incisions to insert tools and a camera (i.e., endoscope or laparoscope) so the doctor or surgeon can see inside the patient. In any surgery, there are risks involved, and the ability for a physician to easily mitigate those risks is paramount to the success of the surgery.
However, the images from an endoscopic or laparoscopic camera can be of low quality due to a number of issues such as over- or under-exposure, insufficient light, condensation, bodily fluids obscuring the lens, or other problems. Even with high-quality images, inattention due to fatigue or other distractions can allow small problems in surgery to become large ones.
Thus, a need still remains for a real-time means of detecting problems during diagnosis or surgery. In view of the ever-growing importance of healthcare, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. Growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace make it critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.